Turnabout
by Renfield1
Summary: D.S. wakes up . . . female. It's all downhill from there. Warning, this story is *completely frivolous.* Ch4 now up.
1. Chapter One

  
  


Dark Schneider chuckled in his sleep. 

At last--the perfect shoes! They were _his!_ He could not help but gloat over the soft sepia leather and brushed ebony of the low-heeled dress clogs; they were so _comfortable!_ And they'd go with _everything!_ Laughing with euphoria, he fled the outlet store piled haphazardly with open shoeboxes. He had the perfect shoes! 

"Heehee. . . . What a weird dream," he snickered, sitting up as he awoke. 

Something tugged at his chest. 

"Oi, Arshes," he nudged the half-elf in his bed. "I just had the most bizarre dream--" 

"Mmm?" She rolled to face him sleepily, then her eyes widened with alarm and disbelief, and she sat up quickly, clasping her mouth. 

"About shoes. . . ." he trailed off, distracted by her shocked expression. He looked over both shoulders, but there was nothing behind him. "Arshe, what's wrong?" 

The Thunder Empress uttered a whimpery little scream and fainted. Schneider leaned over to revive her, and something brushed against his upper arm . . something that had been tugging at his chest. 

"Arshe! Hey, Arshe--hmm?" Then he chanced to look down. 

He was a woman. 

Dark Schneider's scream was vigorous and full-throated.

* * *

"Arshes! Hey, Arshe, wake up, it's important!" she was urged. Arshes Nei came around reluctantly as her camisole was yanked at. 

"Mmm?" She opened her eyes. It was Darsh, but he was--gods, it hadn't been a dream-- 

"Don't you faint on me again!" Dark Schneider snarled as the same look of horror came over the elf's face again. "I need to borrow a dress, _fast!_" 

"Wh-what _happened_ to you?" 

"I'm a woman!" Darsh snapped, gesturing at her pale new body. "None of my old things fit! What have you got to spare?" 

"Um. . . ." As if still dreaming, Arshes opened the wardrobe.

* * *

"I look like some airheaded dancing girl," Darsh grumbled in the mirror at the sea-green silk loincloth held at her hips with ornate jeweled links. She was shorter than Arshes now, so all the borrowed things were a bit too long. 

"Oh?" Arshes' eyebrow arched. "Was that how _I_ looked, when I wore it?" 

"Of course not," she answered a little testily. "You look totally different to start with. I just don't want to appear . . . _frivolous,_" she explained. 

"No? Well, try this on--" the half-elf offered, and Dark Schneider lost her balance under the unexpected weight of Arshes' formal shoulder carapace. 

"Uugh--it's so _heavy,_" she grunted, struggling upright. "Don't you have a lighter one?" 

"We--ell . . . if you're not afraid of looking like a dancing girl," Arshes sniped, rummaging deeper into the wardrobe. "Or a magician's assistant . . . or dragon bait. . . ." 

"I get it, I get it!" Schneider recoiled, finally shedding the leaden armor and approaching the mirror again. 

_Damn, I'm really a woman. What could have done this? How long is it going to last?_ she wondered, and a sly grin spread across her face. _At least I get my own pair of these. . . ._ Her hands came up and cupped her generous new breasts, hefting them through the borrowed camisole. Firm, but not _too_ firm-- 

"Stop handling yourself and try this on," Arshes interrupted. 

"Oh! Right," Schneider gasped, turning away from the glass with a blush. 

_Why the hell am I blushing?!?_

"So what on earth were you doing to turn yourself into a woman?" Arshes asked as she helped the black magician into her armor. 

"Um--it's an experiment," she improvised, suddenly very busy with fasteners. "I'll tell you later. I don't want to repeat myself." 

"It's accidental, isn't it? Unanticipated aphrodesiac backlash, ne?" the half-elf smirked, and very nearly winked. 

"Absolutely not," Schneider retorted. "Since when have _I_ needed an aphrodesiac?" She drew herself up and took stock of her new ensemble in the mirror while Arshes laughed. "This will do," she decided, and swiveled automatically to see how big her butt looked.


	2. Chapter Two

To his credit, High Priest Geo did not burst into laughter at the breakfast table. Instead, his cheek twitched, and a high-pitched giggle rose from him at first, to be followed by half-stifled chortling. The loud, unrestrained belly laughter came only after he'd given up any attempt to salvage his own dignity. 

Schneider regarded him with a cold, flat glower from the other end of the table, then acknowledged Yoko. Yoko could only blink at her, clasping her own mouth very hard in order to keep from grinning. Arshes was only maintaining her composure by not paying attention. 

Schneider sighed. "Are you done yet, old man?" she demanded of Geo, who was still laughing too hard to speak. "I just came by to show you how neatly I've slipped through your glorified holy seal." 

"Hahahahaa . . . how's that?" Geo managed, daubing at tears of mirth with his napkin. 

"Isn't it obvious? The last person Yoko--or any other virgin, for that matter--is going to kiss, is another woman!" 

"He's--she's got a point, father," Yoko remarked, still wide-eyed. 

"Heeheehee. . . . That may be the case, Dark Schneider, but what was your reason for wanting to conquer the world in the first place? Wasn't it ultimately so that you could have all the women in the world for yourself?" Geo pointed out, and resumed laughing after another fit of giggles. 

"That's--it's been taken into account," she answered hastily. "First, I have to finish conquering the world!" 

"And in the meantime, you'll have to change your name to _Pink_ Schneider," a voice proposed from the shadowed far corner of the room, turning heads in its direction, and setting off Geo even worse. 

"Who's there?" Schneider demanded. 

"Oh, just me," a girl answered, stepping forward out of the shadows. She was short, of a dramatically curvy build, and as pale as Princess Sheela, although her dark hair was cropped short and her knee-length dress was a plain, indistinct color. "Who would have guessed Dark Schneider would turn out to be such a lovely young lady?" she mused sweetly, approaching only slightly. 

"Who the hell are you?" Schneider asked automatically. 

"Heeheeheee. . . . Oh stop, my stomach hurts," Geo wheezed. 

"Guess," the girl said, and dealt her a dark, sly smile. 

"You . . . _you're_ the one--who did this!" Schneider nearly hissed. Arshes' eyebrows rose. 

"Well, _anything's_ possible," the strange girl admitted, pushing up her glasses as she batted her eyelashes innocently. "I'm mostly here for observation. So, how are you finding your new body, Schneider-san?" 

"How did you do it--without any trace of magic?" 

"I'm sorry, that's proprietary information," the observer smiled cheerfully. "If there's anything else you'd like to ask, though--" 

"Not really. . . ." A globe of red energy crackled alight over Schneider's open palm, and she began to advance on the girl. "I just want to see what happens when--" She was cut off very suddenly by tripping on the long hem of her borrowed skirts, and landing on her face. The spell she'd been forming shattered on the floor, and ricocheted in several pieces off the ceiling and walls, until Geo bothered to shield the breakfast table, Yoko wisely hiding underneath it. When the chaos was over, the observer was gone. 

"No, Schneider-san," her voice answered, seemingly from the rafters. "If you kill me, you'll be a woman forever." 

_"Dammit,"_ Schneider snapped, rubbing her cheekbone, and Arshes came over to help her up. 

"So, it _isn't_ your own spell, then," she commented, and could not suppress a tiny smirk. "I didn't think it was deliberate." 

"What difference does that make," Schneider grumped. 

"I suppose, if you can't undo it, none at all," Yoko deduced, returning to her toast. "Are those Arshes-san's things you're wearing? No wonder you tripped." 

"We'll have to get you something to wear in your own size," Arshes concluded. 

Dark Schneider groaned.

* * *

For someone accustomed to finding his wardrobe in caches of enchanted treasure, or stripping it from the corpses of fallen adversaries, the trip through the local market to Tailor's Row was as gruelling and humiliating as it was boring. And of course Yoko and Arshes _couldn't shut up. . . ._

"Well of _course_ it's going to look horrid, if you leave your posture like that!" Arshes scolded as Dark Schneider scowled up at her, slouching inside the umpteenth outfit she'd been stuffed into that morning. 

"You look like an old lady, standing like that," Yoko confirmed. 

"Put your chin up and your shoulders back--like that," Arshes instructed, brusquely posing the cranky clotheshorse. "If one of my troops slouched that badly, I'd have her beaten. There, that's much better! It's really a good color for you." 

Yoko had to agree, and the banter went on until Schneider was at last bundled back into the clothes she'd arrived in and purchases were finally made--at Arshes' discretion. 

"Well, I'm glad to have _that_ bullshit behind me," Schneider remarked, having a good stretch in the street outside the tailor's. "I'm ready to get back to the castle now; my feet are killing me--" 

"Well then, it must be time to get you shoes," Yoko grinned, taking her by the elbow. Dark Schneider recoiled in horror and brushed her off. 

_"Shoes?_ If we buy anything else today, it's _lunch!_ And maybe armor!" she insisted. "I'm not putting on _**anything**_ else pastel-colored, filigreed, embroidered, or--" 

"Watch out," came a sudden warning. Schneider had forged ahead of the group during her rant, almost walking backwards, when she was taken by the hand and neatly pirouetted around a fresh pile of horse leavings. 

"Say, you're not a bad dancer," the youth holding her hand commented as he helped her regain her balance. 

"Wh-what'd you do that for?" she burted automatically, more angry at herself for blushing than anything else. The boy appeared to be in his late teens, and wore the uniform of the castle guard, which only seemed strange in that he wore glasses as well. He was about Arshes' height, a head taller than Schneider, and his straight dark hair was cut uniformly at about chin-length. 

"I was afraid that if you stepped in something unpleasant, it would ruin your sexy walk," he smiled, and suddenly it struck Dark Schneider that not only was this youth holding her inappropriately close, but his steadying hand rested on her butt. 

"Hey, get your hand off that!" she demanded, untangling herself rapidly and blushing even worse. "D'you have any idea who I _am!?"_

"No, I don't," the young guard answered, still in the same calm tone. "Please, tell me." 

"I am the legendary dark sorceror--ah--" Schneider paused on noting over her shoulder the grins suppressed by Yoko and Arshes, in anticipation of a much bigger laugh. She improvised. "--Rushe," she finished, almost smoothly. Better to lose grandeur than face. 

"Ah, the Lady Rushe. And what might your destination be this hour, Lady Rushe?" He executed a brief, formal bow. 

"What the hell business is it of yours?" The more furious Dark Schneider grew at herself for blushing, the worse she blushed. _Maybe if I stop looking at him. . . ._ Then she smacked herself inwardly for so girlishly averting her gaze. 

"I wondered if the Lady Rushe and her handmaidens might like an escort for the afternoon," the boy offered, pulling out all the stops in his display of gallantry. 

_"Handmaidens!?"_ Yoko snapped. "This is the Thunder Empress Arshes Nei! If you'd been in the guard for more than a week, you'd know it already!" 

"And if I were you, I'd make a strategic retreat before offending the daughter of High Priest Geo Note Soto any further," Arshes recommended with a bit of a glower, and the youth's suave facade withered rather suddenly. 

"Well, far be it from me to disregard the advice of an empress," he faltered, stepping back for a quick escape. "Lady Rushe, I beg your leave, in hopes of once more basking in your radiant presence," the guard added hastily, backing into traffic. "Stay well!" 

"Wait a minute! Who're _you?"_ Schneider yelled, almost starting after him, and the youth half-turned to face her again. 

"Oh, me?" he called over the street noise. "My name is--" He was drowned out abruptly and hidden from view by the passage of a handful of clattering pottery carts, and naturally, when they were gone, so was he. 

Arshes folded her arms. "He was unusually pretty, for a castle guard," she noted with suspicion. 

"Yes, he struck me as some sort of con man, or unemployed actor," Yoko agreed. 

"Hey, I'm not that plain, as a woman!" Schneider argued. "Just because you're women and unable to sense it now, doesn't mean my sexual magnetism is in any way diminished!" she asserted, leading them down the sidewalk. 

"Oh yeah? If that's the case, why don't you have men all over you, like you supposedly did with women?" Yoko pointed out, and Schneider paused. 

"Men are just better at resisting . . . temptation," she said, striking a subtly provocative pose and sweeping her platinum-blonde hair back from her neck, then batting her eyelashes briefly. A number of heads turned in the traffic around them, a number of accidents were very narrowly averted. "It's only a matter of time," she added, dropping out of her erotic stance and continuing down the street. 

"Well, she's got us there," Arshes murmured. Yoko shut her gaping mouth. 

"That calculating little minx--" 

"I wonder if this means Rushe is also female. . . ." 

"Well, it's not like you're gonna find out!" Yoko insisted huffily, and the trio's progress was interrupted for the second time by Dark Schneider, frozen in her tracks outsize a cobbler's establishment. 

"Ino Marta's tits!" she swore. _"A shoe sale!!"_


	3. Chapter Three

Ascending the long winding staircase to the room she shared with Arshes, Dark Schneider struggled to balance eight shoeboxes at once. It wasn't long, however, before she was shoved up against the support pillar and the shoes knocked and scattered down the stairs, as the broad form of Ninja Master Gara attempted to pass her on the way down. 

"Use the servant's corridors, wench," he grunted on his way. 

"You great ham-handed gorilla, you're going to pick those up before you go another step!" Schneider snapped, and Gara paused to look back over his shoulder. 

"What did you say?" 

"Have your ears finally gone the way of your brain, Gara? Pick up those shoes!" she repeated, and he turned toward her with slowly rising ire. 

"I don't know who you think you're talking to, little wench," he began in his soft-and-dangerous voice, "but I--" 

"_You're_ pretty full of yourself, for an ape-man," she sneered almost reflexively, and his face began to darken with rage. Before he could take hold of her, however, she turned aside and took advantage of the lack of a handrail by simply shoving Gara sideways off the staircase. Taken by surprise, he caught himself on the stairs by his fingertips, but just barely. He blinked in astonishment up at Dark Schneider. 

"You little--" Gara began, but then his eyes widened further with sudden recognition. "You--you're--D--" and he burst out laughing without finishing the thought. 

"What are you laughing at? Surely you're not laughing at _me_," Schneider harped, treading heavily on the fingers of one vulnerable hand. 

"_Ow_ hahahaha of course not," Gara chortled. "Hahahahow the hell did you wind up as a woman?" 

"It's an experiment. Now get up here and pick up my shoes and _stop laughing_," she snarled, stomping on his fingers again. 

"Okay, okay, quit stepping on me and give me a hand up!" Gara bargained breathlessly. 

"Oh, I couldn't do _that_, Gara," Schneider smiled with a sudden disturbing sweetness, "That would be unladylike." 

* * *

Arshes' bedroom had a spectacular balcony view of the palace courtyard, and it was this that caught Dark Schneider's attention, when at last the shoe delivery was completed. 

"Looks like your feet stayed the same size," Gara remarked in the background, sorting over the pile of shoes he'd dumped on the bed. 

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Schneider challenged, and threw a sandal at him. Gara chuckled. "Quit indulging your foot fetish and come take a look at this." 

"_Who's_ got a foot fetish, now?" Gara muttered, eyebrow askew, but he came over to the window. "What are you looking at?" 

"The castle guards down there," Schneider began, tapping the glass at the formation of recruits undergoing drills below. "You see the puny one, with glasses on?" 

"Oh, is that your new boyfriend? Don't waste any time, do you?" Gara ribbed. 

"Don't make me blow up this lovely room just to punish your insolent ass," Schneider warned. "I want you to find out his name, where he's from, how long he's been with the guard, stuff like that. There's something fishy about him, and I don't like it." 

"You think he's a spy?" 

"Could be. It's possible he's more than that. Look, he's no slouch at the hand-to-hand combat," Schneider observed. 

"I see. . . . I'll put my men on it. I'll have your information for you tonight," Gara promised. 

"We'll meet in your quarters, at midnight--no, an hour later," she decided. "Don't disappoint me." 

* * *

Dark Schneider's secound encounter took place rather sooner than expected. She was taking a different route from the bedroom--the one that led to the dining hall--when the sound of voices on the landing below cued her to duck into the shadow just beyond the corner. 

"Patrol, my ass!" she heard Kai Harn say. "You're sneaking off for a little tryst with somebody, aren't you now?" 

"Ma'am, the castle interior _is_ part of the regular rounds; you can ask the captain of the guard if you don't believe me--!" a slightly nervous youth answered. 

_It's that guard,_ Schneider realized, and risked a peek around the corner. Arshes Nei's general had effectively pinned him to the wall. 

"Captain of the guard, _hah!_" Kai Harn laughed. "What business has he got, hiring boys like you? You're much too pretty to be a castle guard. Why don't you sign on with me, instead? I know _exactly_ where to station you. . . ." 

She couldn't see the leer, but Dark Schneider could hear it. 

"Thank you, ma'am, but I'd rather finish my training with the castle guard--" 

"Oh, training! I can get you training--_special_ training--right . . . now. . . ." 

Schneider was done listening. She sauntered out of the shadow to the head of the staircase, and leaned casually on the bannister. 

"Now, either your standards are slipping, or your libido's expanded beyond the bounds of good taste, Kai Harn," she commented loudly, and the general recoiled sharply. 

"What the hell business is it of yours!?" she demanded. "Who are you?" 

"Lady Rushe!" the young guardsman exclaimed. 

"I didn't know you had the day off, general," Schneider continued, descending the stairs. "Surely you wouldn't be propositioning castle staff while you're both on duty-?" 

"I'd like to know who you think you are, little tart," Kai Harn growled, turning to face her. She was even taller than the guard. "So they'll know what to put on your tombstone!" 

Dark Schneider chuckled. 

"I think," she began, more quietly because she was now on the same landing, "you're likely to get more trouble than you give, if you _ever_ screw with me or mine, understand?" 

Kai Harn struck her backhand, sharply. The young guard immediately tried to execute some kind of armlock on the Amazon, but she shrugged him off and smacked him back against the wall. It took just as much time as Schneider needed to get the general between herself and the staircase. 

"_**Damned!**_" she shouted, and the spellblast blew Kai Harn down the full flight of stairs. Her landing was poor, but her recovery swift. 

"You--little bitch!" she sputtered, rather rattled. 

"That's right," Schneider answered. "There's more where that came from, you big butch dyke," she bluffed, and performed a flourish with her arms. Blue static crackled around her impressively. 

Kai Harn made a small 'gleep' noise, and departed downstairs with all speed. 

"Wow, I didn't think you could do that indoors," the guard said. "Thank you, Lady Rushe!" 

"Well, it was just a very little one. You, what's your name?" Schneider remembered to ask. 

"Oh, I'm Ren; Rudo Fi Ren," the youth smiled, and jumped when she laughed. 

"Well, I'm onto you, Ren," Schneider smirked. "Don't think I don't know what you're up to." 

". . . Up to?" he echoed, apparently baffled. 

"It's as plain as the glasses on your face," she added. 

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Lady Rushe--" 

"Fine, play dumb as long as you like; it just makes things easier for me," Dark Schneider said. "But you'll make a piss-poor guardsman if you can't even hold your own against Kai Harn." 

"There isn't a man in the castle who can hold his own against her!" Ren countered, then paused for a moment. "Except maybe Dark Schneider, but I haven't seen him since I got here," he mused. "You don't suppose--" 

"Aren't you supposed to be on patrol?" Schneider nearly snapped, irritated over the threshhold. The young guard gasped and saluted reflexively. 

"Yes ma'am, I'm on my way! --And, thanks again!" he called gratefully, already halfway up the stairs.


	4. Chapter Four

It was an hour after midnight in the ninja master's quarters, deep in the foundations of the castle Metallicana. All the expensive furnishings and tapestries did little to disguise the old dungeons, but Gara was too much a bachelor to care. Dark Schneider sat impatiently in the most thronelike and lavishly upholstered chair in the suite. 

"The captain of the guard says he's been here for almost two weeks. Walked straight out of the country, apparently, but he's still shrewd enough that the captain wants to train him for undercover court duty," Gara recited, leaning on the back of Schneider's chair. He was interrupted by a group of ninjas entering the other end of the room with less-than-usual stealth. They were carrying something. 

"Here he is, Master Gara," they offered. "He fought pretty well, straight out of sleep." 

_"Garaaa...."_ Schneider groaned, clutching her face in chagrin. He might have been a ninja master, but subterfuge had never been one of his strong points. 

"Well, ah, isn't it easier to ask him yourself?" Gara tried feebly. The young guard held up by the ninjas began to regain consciousness, but without his glasses he was forced to squint hard. 

"L..Lady Rushe? What are you doing here?" he asked in a tired voice, as if awakened from another dream. 

"Guardsman Ren," Schneider began with a note of resignation, "What's your real reason for coming to the castle?" 

"Hm? ..Security," the youth answered after a very brief pause. It was entirely possible that he still believed himself to be dreaming. "Aren't these the old dungeons?" He squinted harder. 

"Security? ..Where are you from?" 

"T-Tussire," he replied, stifling a yawn. 

"Have you heard of it, Gara?" she asked aside, and he shook his head. "What's Tussire?" she continued to the boy. 

"It's small... it's a very small.... It's a village," Ren supplied drowsily. 

"Yes? And who sent you?" 

The pause was longer this time. 

"I ran away," the guard confessed. 

"Seems pretty cut-and-dry to me," Gara murmured. "At least a quarter of the new guards have the same story, just different villages." 

"All the more reason to suspect," Schneider pointed out. "Who goes to the trouble to confirm a farmboy's story?" She returned to the interrogation. "Are you really a man?" 

"...Yeah...." he answered hesitantly. "What's that got to do with anything?" 

"Is he really a man?" she thought to ask the ninjas, and there was a yelp of pain from their prisoner as they confirmed it. 

"Real enough," the ninjas told her. 

"How old are you, guardsman Ren?" 

"Suh-seventeen," he managed with watering eyes, still squirming with pain. 

Schneider considered for a long moment, chin on fist. Then she made a sudden dismissive gesture. "Okay, put him back." 

_"What?"_ Gara said. 

"You heard me. I'm out of questions for now, and I don't see how we could possibly damage my investigation any further, so you might as well put him back. Go on," she made another shoo-ing gesture, and the ninjas hastened back the way they'd entered. 

"Gara, what's the grand unifying principle of all ninjitsu?" Schneider asked wearily. 

"Secrecy," he answered. 

"Wonderful, wonderful. So, do you know what the word 'subtle' means?"' 

"You've gotten a lot bitchier since you changed sex," Gara observed, and Schneider whipped around in the chair to glare at him. 

_"You'd be bitchy too!"_ she snarled. "You really have no idea, Gara. Hell, you'd probably turn into another Kai Harn!"

* * *

The morning patrol was dismissed, and in the barracks the captain of the guard continued with his inspections. A note on his clipboard regarding one of the new kids caught his eye, and he turned back to have a word. 

"Guardsman Ren, would you mind explaining where you were--sweet merciful crap, what happened to you?" 

He saluted quickly. "Sir, ninjas beat me up, sir!" 

"....Ninjas?" 

"Sir, yessir!" 

"...And when was this?" 

"Just last night sir, before I was abducted. Sir," the boy added, still keeping a straight face. 

"Abducted... by ninjas," the captain clarified. If it weren't for the obvious bruises all over the young guard, he'd have been on the floor laughing. 

"Sir, yessir!" 

"--And you escaped?" the captain presumed carefully. 

"Nosir, they brought me back." 

"So then, in the middle of the night, ninjas came in here, beat you up, abducted you, and then they brought you back?" he assessed. 

"Yessir. It may have been a case of mistaken identity, sir." 

"Nninjas," the captain repeated, trying not to grin. "That's a new one." He scribbled the word on his clipboard, and beside it added: _Have now officially heard everything._ "I'll have a word about it with Master Gara, but I want you to go on sick leave until that shiner's healed up, or you'll make the rest of us look bad." 

"Sir, Yessir!" 

"Oh, and one last thing. Guardsman Dir says he saw a woman asleep in your bed about two nights ago; d'you have any explanation for this?" 

"I do not, sir! Apart from the common knowledge that he hasn't been laid in several months, sir." The youth's ability to keep from cracking up was impressive. 

"Heh. Well, there _is_ that." He wrote another reminder on the clipboard, to _See M. Gara._ "That'll be all, guardsman Ren. Just take that stick out of your ass before you break something. You're still a civilian, for the love of mercy." 

The young guard's starchy posture relaxed somewhat. "Right away, sir...." 

The captain of the guard sighed, and moved on.


End file.
